MEDIMONT - Chris Carlson has led a charmed life.

"I feel pretty doggone blessed," said the 66-year-old father of four.

Born in Wardner Hospital in Kellogg, Carlson moved with his family to southern Idaho at an early age and then back to Spokane when he turned 8 years old.

He went through school in the Central Valley School District and spent his summers in North Idaho.

Both his parents were school teachers, which obviously gave him some advantage at graduation time.

"I won a scholarship to Columbia University, and I quickly learned that I was not well prepared for an Ivy League school," he said. "I had to spend hours and hours in the library.

"All the other kids were reading stuff like Iliad for the fourth time, and I was just reading them for the first time."

Still, Carlson was able to power through and wound up graduating a year early. That was the summer of 1968.

"That was at the height of the Vietnam draft," Carlson said. "That's when Jay Shelledy entered my life."

Shelledy knew he needed a job, and helped him land one teaching and coaching basketball at Kootenai High School near Harrison.

"It was like manna from Heaven," Carlson recalled. "And that was truly fateful in so many ways."

That is where he wound up coaching his future wife's brother.

In 1969 he went back to school to earn a master's degree at Idaho State University in Pocatello. He completed that in one year, and married his wife Marsha on June 12, 1970.

"That was a pretty tough time," he said. "I taught two English composition classes, I took a full load of credits and I was reporting at the Idaho State Journal."

He left southern Idaho to take a job with the Spokane Chronicle.

"I hired on as a North Idaho reporter, but they wound up sticking me on the copy desk and that really sucked," he said. "So I moved on after a few months of that."

Carlson paid the bills by freelancing after that. Much of his work was picked up by the Intermountain Observer. That's how he caught the eye of Robert Smith, who owned an independent news service that was focused on the Northwest.

"He saw an article I wrote and flew into Spokane and offered me a job in DC," he said. "I thought why not."

He moved his young family to the nation's capital, where he ended up focusing his news coverage on Alaska. It was during the time the Alaskan pipeline was being built. He got to know U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens and others during that time, which would prove very useful in the future.

"Then one day I just picked up the phone and it was Cecil Andrus on the other end," Carlson said. "He asked me if I was ready to come home.

"He said there was a plane ticket waiting for me at National Airport, which is now Reagan National, and he wanted me to fly to Boise and talk about a job."

Andrus had just been elected as Idaho's 26th governor, so Carlson talked it over with his wife.

"We had been in DC for two years, so when my wife dropped me off at the airport she said, 'I don't care if he offers you a janitor's job, just take it,'" he said. "She was ready to come home."

That had to be pretty exciting...

It was exciting. That was in 1973, and I spent the next nine years working for Andrus. We had a great relationship that carried through my years at Kaiser and the Gallatin Group. I eventually even wooed him in as a rainmaker for the Gallatin Group.

Some people say I idolize him too much. I don't think so. He is a great man and I still talk to him once a week or so.

How did your Alaska experience help in your political career?

In 1977 Jimmy Carter tapped Andrus for Secretary of Interior, and I went along with him. During that time, Andrus was working on getting the Alaska Lands Act through Congress. I was able to work behind the scenes with my Alaskan background to get things done. In the end we were successful in getting many of Alaska's Crown jewels protected into perpetuity.

It was one of my greatest accomplishments.

As his press secretary, all of the press releases and speeches had to be cleared by me. So I get this speech and it had a line in there that said all of these national parks would be treated the same way as every other national park.

I knew he couldn't say that because they have subsistence hunting up in Alaska, and you can't hunt in most national parks.

I showed it to Andrus, and he saw what we were talking about and took that line out. You can still subsistence hunt in the Alaskan national parks.

That had to be a pretty heady job...

Yeah, sometimes my ego would get a little too big.

One time Andrus came down the hall and stood in my office door. He looked at me and then he looked at the door and then he looked back at me and said "You know, there are a lot of names on a lot of doors in this building, but there is only one name on the ballot."

He did it in a nice way, but I got the hint. I'd probably been talking to the press too much.

What did you do after the interior job?

I did a stint on the Northwest Power Planning Council, and then went to work for a short time with Jay Rocky at Northwest Public Affairs. Then I spent four years working for Kaiser during the whole WPPSS (Pronounced whoops, which stood for the failed Washington Public Power Supply System) ordeal.

I worked with the power manager at Kaiser to get the variable rate we paid for power tied to the price of aluminum. The first year that went into effect, Kaiser saved $110 million in power costs.

When I heard that, I thought if I were a consultant I could have made quite a bit of money off that. That's when I moved on and put together the Gallatin Group.

I left that behind about eight years ago to reduce the stress in my life. After I was diagnosed with cancer, I wasn't sure how much time I had left.

Your cancer is in remission now. How is that going?

I wouldn't say remission. I like to say it is dormant. I fought it back to a standstill. It's still there and it will come back, but right now I am doing OK.

Considering I was at late stage four when I was diagnosed, and since then I have surprised a lot of people.

Frankly, my Parkinson's Disease gives me more trouble right now. I've been fighting that for 14 years.

So it's back to writing for you now?

Yeah, I believe everyone has a great story to tell. If for nothing else, they should write it down for their kids and grandkids.

I have been filling my time writing books and columns for the St. Maries Gazette Record. And that's been a pretty incredible experience.

It's like the old H.L. Mencken quote: "I like to afflict the comfortable, and comfort the afflicted."

I wrote "Cecil Andrus: Idaho's Greatest Governor" and it sold about 1,600 copies. For a regional biography, it's done pretty well, I think. The publisher made money and I even made a little on that one.

I am going to release "Medimont Reflections" on May 30. It might not do quite as well. This one is a series of essays on notable Idahoans.

There is a piece on Idaho's most powerful women like Louise Shadduck and Gracie Post. There is a little bit in there on the Mormon influence on Idaho's politics, and there are a couple of newsmakers in this one as well.

But that is going to stay embargoed until the release on May 30.